Palm Springs, California. Once best known as a desert hangout for Hollywood’s 1960s rat pack, it is now arguably the gayest town in the US
Photograph: Danita Delimont/Getty Images/Gallo Images

Palm Springs has just ushered in America’s first all-LGBT city council and this is what it’s doing to celebrate: nothing.

No rainbow flag over city hall, no pride parade, no proclamation about making history, not even a press release. In fact it has barely acknowledged the milestone.

“Tell the truth, I didn’t even think about it until after the election,” the mayor, Robert Moon, 68, said in an interview this month as the new council prepared to convene. “You see, it doesn’t really matter. It’s not an issue here.”

The struggle for gay and transgender rights, in other words, has so triumphed in this wealthy desert oasis it sees little remarkable about electing three gay men, a transgender woman and a bisexual woman, all Democrats, to its five-member council.

The reaction in Palm Spring was very much, OK, so? People are simply judged on their merits

Geoff Kors, council member

A precedent-setting event which might elicit cheers and controversy elsewhere unfolded in this picturesque corner of California’s Coachella valley with a shrug and some bemusement at national and international interest.

“The reaction in Palm Spring was very much, OK, so?” said Geoff Kors, a council member. “People are simply judged on their merits.”

The real victory, he and other council members said, was not that LGBT candidates swept the election but that they did so with barely a mention of sexual orientation or gender identity. Voters cared more about policing, homelessness and roads.

“There is no gender associated with potholes,” said Lisa Middleton, 65, the newly elected transgender council member, who was still unpacking belongings in her office.

The former auditor was more passionate about road repairs than identity politics. “If the street is not well paved you’re not going to be happy. It doesn’t matter what party you are.”

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Nationally, it can be another story.

Donald Trump’s administration has sought to fire up the president’s conservative base by rescinding Obama-era rights for transgender students and attempting to ban transgender troops in the military. Roy Moore, Alabama’s defeated Senate candidate, threatened to bring an atavistic view of homosexuality to Washington DC.

Palm Springs, a 47,000-strong community which boasts fine dining, galleries and mid-century architecture, feels like a parallel universe.

Christy Holstege, a newly elected member of Palm Springs’ all-LGBT city council. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

Sexual orientation did surface in last month’s city council election, but in a very Palm Springs way: one candidate, Christie Holstege, 31, who is married to a man, was accused of pretending to be bisexual in order to curry voters’ favour. She insisted she was, and won, becoming the second new council member, alongside Middleton.

“Only in Palm Springs would it be claimed that someone faked being bi to get ahead,” Holstege said this week, with a wry smile.

She said her qualifications as an attorney with expertise in homelessness clinched victory, not her sexual orientation. Bread-and-butter issues, not grandstanding gestures such as a resolution to impeach Trump, will be the focus. “We don’t want to go on a progressive tirade. We have to guard against backlash.”

Palm Springs had long been an LGBT haven so an all-LGBT council should not come as a surprise, said Holstege. Seated in a Starbucks, she indicated the gender-neutral toilets, the result of an ordinance passed last year by the previous council, which had four LGBT members. The sole straight member was also the sole Republican.

Robert Moon, the mayor of Palm Springs, in his office. Photograph: Rory Carroll for the Guardian

Once best known as a desert hangout for Hollywood’s 1960s rat pack, Palm Springs is now arguably the gayest town in America.

It is ranked first in California and the third in the US among cities with the most same-sex couples per 1,000 households, according to census data analysis by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Gay vacationers flocked here in recent decades because it was discreet – what happened in Palm Springs stayed in Palm Springs – and many ended up staying. Soaring housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area prompted another wave of arrivals.

Local politics used to be deeply Republican but the demographic shift prompted an evolution, said David Ready, the city manager.

LGBT residents are very engaged in local government, he said. “In other places they used to be fearful of being involved. Here there’s a safety, a comfort. You can be who you are. It’s almost like a cultural diversity utopia.”

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The city manager, who is gay, estimated that about half of the members of neighbourhood organisations were gay.

Moon, the mayor, said that for decades he had led a “careful, closeted” life as a naval officer and so cherished the fact that Palm Springs accepted an all-LGBT government as no big deal. “My hope is that some day every city, state and country will feel the same way.”

But extra visibility brings extra responsibility. “People are watching,” said Middleton. “Anyone who is first feels extra pressure to be good, to do the job well.”